Alchemy of soul
by Adrian Leverkuhn
Summary: Draco can't accept Severus' death. SSDM. WIP


Alchemy of Soul – Prologue : Requiem

This is the dead land

This is the cactus land

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man's hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this

The death's other kingdom

Walking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

From prayers to broken stone.

T. S. Eliot

The incense smell was far too intense.

In the small underground chapel, the air was thick with panting breaths and death. He didn't feel his head anymore, his pulsing heart was way too painful. Everything, around him, was unfocused even if he did not feel the tears in his eyes while crying silently. Something inside him had forgotten how to breathe.

_Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; In memoria aeterna erit iustus ab auditione mala non timebit._

His father's grip was iron on his arm, that living hand the only thing keeping him from believing that it was all a horrible nightmare, the only thing imposing on him the unsustainable weight of reality.

The incense smell was far too intense, but didn't gloss over the faint smell of dried blood- they had composed the corpse with all the care due to a close relative, but weren't able to erase that odour.

_Rex tremendae maiestatis, qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me, fons pietatis_

Draco himself had washed his face devoutly, with all the love the man, alive, had not let him express. He had kissed his forehead, had kissed his closed eyes; he hadn't touched his cold, still mouth. He had felt sick and could not stay anymore.

Narcissa had dressed him up with a new, black formal robe, as if he was going to attend a ball. She had arranged the collar to hide the fatal wound between his shoulder and neck, put a coin under his tongue to pay the passage and whispered ancient words in his ear to help it.

Lucius had combed his dark hair, telling him about their mutual friends' fate, telling him how much of a stupid hero he was, about their friendship, long time gone days and Draco's heartbreaking pain. Then he had placed on him his own favourite cufflinks and had joined those long, pale hands on his unmoving chest, squeezing them in a final greeting.

_Quaerens me sedisti lassus, redemisti crucem passus; tantus labor non sit cassus._

They had kept watch over him until morning, together. Narcissa had rested her head on her husband's shoulder, her eyes closed, murmuring prayers. She was mourning her sister too, but the Ministry had not let them have the corpse – there was no mercy for losers, not even in their death. Her lips trembled at the thought of such acts of impiousness.

Draco had stood all night, unable to rest, unable to sit, even unable to pray, barely caressing the man's head, absently, because he was there no more. He kept staring at the trembling candle-flames, not seeing them; melting wax dropped over, rhythmically, faster than his heart, again and again, until dawn.

_Gemisco tamquam reus, culpa rubet vultus meus: supplicanti parce, Deus._

He didn't look like he was sleeping: there was a tension, a smooth stillness in his traits, in his livid forehead, in his bloodless lips, that could not be mistaken for sleep, that spoke nothing of rest. Not a line, not a wrinkle on his face anymore: no sign of time marked his expression, eternally and terribly imperturbable; it was as cold and lifeless as marble. No, Draco had seen him and he was not like this in his sleep: he had sustained his head with a hand, last year, when he was too tired, worn out by responsibilities and preoccupations, the very moment before he fell asleep at his Headmaster-desk while Draco was still there, just staying with him, reporting inanities, planning futilities, because they both were unable to do more; he had seemed younger and gentle, something sweet in the way his shoulders relaxed, his face softened. Draco had always covered him with his own robe, kissed the tender skin of his temple, whispered things he didn't dare to think when Severus was awake and around them the war going on was still more pressing and real than in those nights of anguish and waiting; every time, he had returned to his dorm only in his shirt, walking trough freezing air and too many shadows. He had always found his robe returned in the morning, Severus' scent on it and a little parchment in the pocket: "Thank you". Draco was in love for the first time in his life.

Now, he didn't look like he was sleeping, at all, and Draco's heart squeaked like a stifled mouse or broken glass.

_Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis, gere curam mei finis. __Lacrimosa dies illa. _

The shadows were too long, that morning; dawn was pale pink and pearly grey and funeral purple, cloudy and humid. June is the cruellest month, not April, breeding yellowish grass, earth good for burying only, and yet the sky so bright, too bright, and everything mad with life running around you, and a deadly air too warm to breathe.

Severus had appeared even more livid in the morbid light, dismissed like a drunkard after a solitary ball, in his open coffin. Draco had placed a single white rose, not disclosed yet, in his hands, had kissed them for a last time, and had whispered an incantation to preserve him, to protect him and his rose from corruption, to keep him forever like you keep a secret.

_Domine, Iesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni et de profundo lacu_

A rose thorn was still in his skin, the rose perfume dense in the room, tons of white roses waited there for nothing in particular after they had brought the coffin away; Draco had been left behind, nobody asked him to follow, nobody had put a comforting hand on his shoulder - not that he would want it: his mother had understood, his father was too lost in his own pain to see, maybe. He had sat like a doll with broken legs on the table where Severus' body had waited the whole night to be buried with the rising sun, caressing the wood and imagining him there, the pain in his hand less intense, less real, than the pain in his chest. The white roses were everywhere. He had touched his face to believe that he was crying even if he didn't feel it, he didn't feel anything anymore, and had found his cheek dampened with tears; the feeling of his own blood on his skin was almost burning, it marked his visage like a war sign and he felt like he was going into a battle he had already lost. The white roses were everywhere.

_Hostias et preces tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus; tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam facimus. Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam._

The white roses were everywhere, yet their perfume smelled of death, of the metallic taste of blood and the putrid scent of faded petals. They came from Narcissa's garden, from the almost arid rose brushes that had had an exceptional bloom this year. Their flowers had always been rare, solitary spots of white among brambles, precious and wild, a bit menacing. Severus had kissed him there, once, their first kiss, their only kiss ; it was winter, all the thorns frozen with snow, his own lips cold from fear, and tiredness, and a palpitating hope he had never felt before, only Severus as tepid as springtime, there for him.

- They'll bloom again, you'll see- he had said, caressing Draco's hair, - I know.

- I hope.

- I have to go.

It hadn't happened again, yet Draco had felt a bit more reassured in Severus' already, always, comforting presence. Sometimes he had found a tenderness in the way those ebony eyes looked at him while believing that he wasn't aware; it had made him smile, he had warmed him all over in grey, endless days.

Now it was June, and yet it felt like winter again, with the constant terror of losing everything, and a monster in his home, even if Voldemort was gone and he had nothing left, almost nothing at all. The room was empty, now, all the candles worn out, and the sun too pale; the roses' smell was far too intense.

- Severus- he said.

_Libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum… Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam_

He had descended the stairs like a ghost hunting his own dreams. It took what seemed to him an infinite time to reach the crypt, the familiar paintings on the stairs' walls had glanced at him like he was as inconsistent, as unsubstantial, as themselves. He entered like it was his own funeral, pale and livid, dishevelled hairs, blood-stained face, messed black robe, disarranged and deranged; he looked like a condemned man or Death herself. He was confused, yet he couldn't look around, because all that he was able to see was Severus' coffin _more nobilium _laid on the stone floor, in front of him.

_Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda, quando coeli movendi sunt et terra. Dum veneris iudicare sæculum per ignem. Tremens factus sum ego et timeo, dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira_

His fathers' hands had helped him to his place, he was so near to the coffin he could touch it by barely kneeling. Someone was already chanting the rite, plainly; it was neatly, discretely solemn like the man had been. His mother was drying her silent tears with a batiste handkerchief, no emotion on her face, she just stood there, eyes closed and crying; she was alone. His father was sustaining him, keeping him on his feet, because Draco knew that without this he was going to faint, maybe they both were; Lucius kept murmuring Latin prayers, inexorably and Draco was cold, so terribly cold.

_Dies iræ, dies illa, calamitatis et miseriæ, dies magna et amara valde. __Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis._

The incense smell was far too intense; incense floated as dense and thick as Acheron fog; the incense burner wavered on the coffin, and Draco could not see anything anymore, just white smoke weaves and burning candles shadows and glimpses of dark, lucid wood. And it was almost over, he knew it. Severus was to rest in the unmoving stone, just above Grandfather Abraxas, in a few moments. And then there would be nothing, nothing at all. The incense smell was nauseating, or just his thoughts were.

_In paradisum deducant te Angeli; in tu adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem_

Narcissa sobbed; Lucius sighed, holding Draco's arm so tightly he could feel the throb in his son's veins vibrating in his own throat, sustaining himself too. Draco just whispered all over "I can't, I can't", like it was a secret spell to make all of this go away. He couldn't. And everything went black.

_Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam._


End file.
